Weird
by 3918
Summary: Two newbies brought to camp half-blood! They are extremely powerful, but their powers are strange...
1. Detention

Ember gritted her teeth. She was on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor with another kid in jeans and a baseball cap talking non-stop next to her. The punishment was bad enough without this idiot boy blathering. She tried to tune him out, but unfortunately there was nothing much to concentrate on but the stained linoleum floor, which was miserably uninteresting. She sighed and gave in, letting the never-ending flow of words pouring from his mouth actually register in her brain.

"…like, she is so mean! I just happened to jump up and then the whole stand came down on top of her head and then she screamed didn't she look funny with paint all over her glasses? And then the stand smashed into the floor and then you know what happened it got all over some other kid's clothes and he started to shriek geez what a complete wimp everyone knows you don't wear designer to art and then…"

Ember had had enough. She was tired and grumpy and she didn't care one iota what her brother Seth said. With remarkable speed, she spun around and glared at him with the ferocity of a hung-over mountain lion. "Shut up!" See? Clear and concise. Ember could be very blunt when she meant to.

The boy's eyes widened under his curly brown fringe. He was staring at her eyes. She lowered them, quickly, and went back to work. She was feeling guilty already. But the job was done. The boy didn't say a word throughout the rest of their shared detention session.

Seth groaned. "Ember! You didn't! Please, please tell me you didn't. Of course you did. That is just totally typical. Typical! How many times do I have to tell you not to lash out at every annoying kid in this entire freaking orphanage! You. Are. Going. To. Blow. Our. Cover!"

A single gust of angry wind blasted her in the face. Scowling at Seth, but embarrassed nonetheless, Ember's hands caught fire out of sheer irritation. She stopped them with a clench of her fists and stalked out.

Seth sighed through his nose, pursing his lips, and followed, light on his feet as a summer breeze.

Outside in the sunlight, the boy from detention was talking urgently. In his hand was a spray bottle pinched from the shed, and he seemed to be talking to a cloud of misty rainbow.

"Backup. I need backup. This one is powerful and she's unusual. Something will be coming for her soon. Send and extraction team, please. And hurry. Please hurry."


	2. Science and Hellhounds don't mix

Ember's elbow slipped sideways off her desk. She struggled to keep her eyes open as Ms. Varner screeched across the blackboard with white chalk and vigor. All the terms blurred in front of her eyes and she felt a hard poke in her back. Seth, she thought blearily.

"Go away, Seth," She mumbled sleepily. "No, I won't go away, Ember!" Seth hissed. "You have to look at this!" He gestured out the window overlooking the schoolyard urgently. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Ember blinked at the scene outside, not taking it in.

"Oh don't be stupid, Seth, it's just a big dog."

"Yes. It is certainly a big dog. Abnormally big. Horse-size. Does that not strike you as strange, my dear sister? Big and black and slavering at the jaws… That thing is abnormal."

Ember blinked again, and this time she really looked, like a camera snapping into supersharp focus. And by the gods, she did not like what she saw, not one little bit. "Oh my god! It's a monster!"

The boy from detention, who was sitting two rows ahead, pricked up his ears. His skin had gone a sickly shade of greenish-white. Oh no, he thought wretchedly, oh no no no no no… they are too late… the extraction team is too late. And he didn't have to spare a glance at the yard to confirm that this was a hellhound, and it was going to attack.


	3. Now I get what you mean by strange

Ember whimpered in fear. Her heart pounded as the huge black dog lumbered closer to the window, eyes ruby red and malignant. It opened its jaws, showing rows of gleaming fangs.

The detention boy glanced at Ms. Varner and the other students. Breathing a sigh of relief, he was comforted to notice that the Mist was working its usual charm. No one, it seemed, other than that girl and her brother, noticed that enormous canine with the attack force of a howitzer misting up the window with its sour breath.

Seth breathed deeply and tried to formulate a good escape route. The window was most certainly out of the question. He would have to grab Ember and leap over seven rows of desks to get to it by speed, which was unlikely. So he would have to take the slow and steady way. Leaning forward, he told Ember quietly: "Ember. This is what we're going to do. No sudden moves-"

And then the gigantic beast saw what it was after. With a horrible howling, growling, roaring shriek it crashed through the window and landed on top of the teacher's desk.

And then the detention boy was up, pulling something from the pocket of his jeans – a strange set of wooden pipes. Frantically he began to play as the classroom emptied, screaming children exploding into the hallways.

The hellhound stopped, mesmerized, as the eerie melody hypnotized its brain. Seth and Ember watched, awe-and-horrorstruck, as the boy played. Its eyes drooped and its legs jellied, sinking to the ground in stupor.

Then everything went wrong. The boy with the pipes had slowly walked forward, keeping his eyes on the drowsy beast, when he tripped over Ms. Varner, who was lying, scared stiff, on the ground. The pipes flew out of the broken window into the schoolyard, and he sprawled, helpless. Seth stood defensively in front of Ms. Varner and Ember crouched with the boy.

The tune choked off, the hellhound roused itself and gave a deafening roar. It sprang, snarling, at Seth, wicked claws outstretched like slivers of Stygian iron.

Seth's sea-glass eyes blazed emerald, and a huge tsunami whirled around him, creating an impenetrable armor of wind and water. He threw blades of air sharper than any common metal, and the dog shattered into grains of stinking shadow and dissolved, essence returning to Tartarus.

And from the window came a low whistle. Leaning casually on the jagged glass was a dark girl with a sarcastic expression. She raised an eyebrow and commented, "Now I get what you mean by 'strange'."


	4. Nutmeg, Wheatabix and Griffins

The boy from detention staggered to his feet, shaking glass from his hair. His baseball cap had fallen off and he went to retrieve it. He eyed the girl with mingled annoyance and exasperation. "Oh, I send for an extraction team and I get you, nutcase?"

The girl frowned and said, "Shut up, goat." The boy rammed the cap back on top of his curls and rolled his eyes. "I always get that." He told Seth and Ember, who were standing stupefied. "Allow me to introduce you to our very own daughter of Demeter, Nut-" The girl glared at him and offered her hand. "Call me Meg."

Meg's gaze landed on Ms. Varner, who was still paralyzed on the ground. "Gods, who is that?" "Um, my math teacher?" Ember answered. "Peri," She said, speaking to the boy, "How do you do that Mist thing again?" "You snap your fingers and stare." Peri answered.

"Right." Meg heaved Ms. Varner to her feet and snapped her fingers. "What dog? I didn't see any big dog. The kids outside broke the window. We were never here."

She grinned as the poor science teacher took on a puzzled expression and blinked. "Drat them kids!" Ms. Varner exclaimed. "They broke the window! I shall report them to the principal." And with that she strode purposefully out of the room, without a glance at the gape-mouthed Seth and Ember.

"Okay, you two, Seth and Ember, right?" Meg asked and they nodded. "Let's blow this pop stand!"

She looked up at the sky and yelled, "Mom! Transport please? We four need to get to Camp Half-blood before, y'know, the headmaster comes in and sees the carnage!"

There was a short second of silence and a box of Wheatabix fell from the sky and bonked her on the head. "Oh great." She groaned. "She still hasn't gotten over the cereal craze." She gave the box to Seth. "Here. Travelling rations."

"No problem, I'll arrange a ride." Peri took out his pipes. He started to play a keening, rollicking tune. And within a minute, two huge shapes spiraled out of the sky to earth.

Meg shook her head. "No use, there are only two- Oh my gods! If those are pegasi, I'll eat dung!"

And indeed the two figures, as big as hellhounds, were not winged horses. They had the head of an eagle and huge, twenty-foot eagles' wings, and clawed eagle forelegs, but the rest of their bodies were lion.

"Griffins." Seth breathed. Peri looked perplexed. "Um, I must have played a couple sharps too many, but, uh, we can still ride them, right?" He added brightly. Meg snorted and pulled herself up on the first, beckoning to Peri. He sat behind her, and Seth and Ember leaped on the second, Ember in the front, Seth on the back. Seth was still clutching the box of Wheatabix.

Meg turned to them with a reassuring smile. "It's alright, just follow us." She dug her heels into the feathers and Peri whacked it on the rump. Screeching, it lurched into the noon sky, with the second griffin following close behind.

Peri shouted through the wind, "IT'S OKAY, WE'LL BE THERE IN THIRTY MINUTES!"

"WHERE?" Ember shrieked.

"LONG ISLAND SOUND, OF COURSE! WHERE WE ALL BELONG!"


	5. Testing

When Ember first saw it, her jaw dropped. It was smooth sailing over strawberry farms, and then in the middle of the biggest, plainest field, she blinked, looked again, and stared. What wasn't there before was there now. "Wow, Seth, look at that!" "Omega!" Seth wondered aloud, taking in the arrangement of cabins.

"You can see through the Mist a lot better than normal demigods,' Meg observed as we touched down in the basketball courts. With a grin, she said: "Welcome to camp half-blood!"

Seth and Ember couldn't believe their eyes. All around were peoples from myths and legends. Satyrs, like Peri, played pipes on the meadow, campers grouped and gossiped and frolicked. A little ways away, kids were racing up a climbing wall that belched molten lava, and a dragon curled around and around a tree with the Golden Fleece. Everyone was wearing a bright orange camp half-blood t-shirt.

Peri ran off with his satyr buddies, job done, but Meg collected a clipboard and a stubby pencil and led the siblings to a yard with straw practice dummies all around.

"This's just a little assessment of your skills. So we can better figure out who you are.

"First of all, how old are you?"

Seth answered, "I turn thirteen tonight."

If Meg was surprised she didn't show it. "Good. Then tonight you participate in capture the flag, and we will see if the gods are in a good mood. And you, Ember?

"We're a day away from a year apart." Said Ember, a smile tugging at her lips. "I just turned twelve last night."

"Happy birthday. Now, any mortal parents?" Meg asked.

"We come from an orphanage. If we have parents, we don't know of them." Ember answered.

"ADHD? Dyslexia?"

"No."

"No."

Meg made a mark on her clipboard and asked, "Are you blood siblings?" She was eyeing their radically different features. The brother and sister had the same build, skinny with high cheekbones and 'pointy' features, but Ember was tanned, had russet hair, and amber eyes the color of iodine, and Seth was as white as vanilla ice cream, with white-blond hair, pale skin, and green eyes.

They looked at each other and nodded. "Yes." They said, very firmly.

Meg nodded and then pulled out a dagger. This is celestial bronze. It wont hurt mortals – go on, prick your finger. Seth did. Ember did. The blade drew blood. Meg nodded. "So you are not mortal."

She then gave Seth a sword and pulled another from its sheath.

"Seth, this is a test of your reflexes and battle skills."

Without another word, she advanced and her sword went into a dizzying pattern of parries, side thrusts, and head on whacks.

The sword was heavy and unwieldy in Seth's hand. He was nimble on his feet and dodged all blows easily, but dragged the sword without a chance to use it, a leaden weight.

Meg stopped and scribbled on her clipboard. These two newbies were really weird.

Arming Ember, she stepped forward to spar with her. The result was the same as Seth. She dodged and ducked with lazy ease but could not use the sword. Then Meg tried something else. She feinted to the left and thrust the sword, deadly and gleaming, at Ember's heart.

Panicked, Ember stood still, and Meg withdrew the weapon inches from the front of Ember's shirt. Meg was then astounded to see that the tip of her sword had melted into goo and was dripping on the ground, like a snuffed-out candle.

"By the river Styx, how on earth did you do that?"

Ember traced her finger lightly over the base of her sword blade, and where it went the celestial metal bubbled and dissolved. With a clang, the sword split in half.

"Wow!" A boy with engine grease all over his clothes stared with amazed delight. "I need _you_ in the forge!"

Meg glared at him and hustled Seth and Ember away. "C'mon, you two. It's time to consult Chiron."


	6. The arrow and the snausage

The big house was impressively huge and old fashioned. Meg had dragged Peri along and he was whining all the way. Leaning open the door, Seth and Ember faced the centaur Chiron, trainer of heroes.

He was wearing a faded blue shirt and was carefully pouring a strange smoking substance into teacups, kneeling on his front legs.

All around the dark, gloomy walls hung strange things – an elaborately carved bow with a matching quiver, signs and pictures, and perhaps most perplexing of all, a mounted leopard head that actually moved. It seemed to distrust Seth, snarling and growling, showing its teeth.

Chiron waved a hand airily. "Oh, don't mind Seymour. Here, new boy Seth, feed him a couple of snausages." He said, handing him a packet. Flustered, Seth tossed not snausages but a handful of Wheatabix at the irate leopard, and backing away, he handed the snausages to Meg.

Peri breathed a long sigh of relief. "Thank the gods and all things holy that you won't be meeting Mr. D, newbies. He'd take one look at you and turn you into a bottlenose. Either a bottlenose or a madman."

"Sounds like a nice guy." Ember mumbled under her breath.

"Mr. D, my young satyr," Chiron looked up from the teapot. "Is off to the underworld for a quick chat with his uncle. He shall be back tomorrow and you, my dears," He smiled kindly, gesturing at Seth and Ember, "Will be able to meet the director. And Peri, don't exaggerate. Mr. D only does that when he's not in a good mood."

"And since when was Mr. D in a good mood?" Meg muttered.

"Anyway, my young demigods, what can I do for you today?" Said Chiron pleasantly.

"Um. Chiron? These two are new. They're really strong and in complete control over their powers already. They can see through the Mist better than any half-blood, have very good reflexes but no battle ones, and can also be injured by celestial bronze. They are not ADHD or dyslexic like other demigods, and we can't figure out who might be their godly parent."

Meg shoved Peri forward, and with a nervous look at Ember, he said, "Uh, Chiron? When I first met her, she glared at me, and you know, those amber eyes, they filled with flames. I swear upon the river Styx, Chiron. Flames, like Hestia or Ares."

"'She' has a name, you know." Ember grumbled.

There was a long silence as the centaur turned away. Then, "Oh dear. This certainly is an interesting case. Can't use a sword, hmm? Well, a few extra sparring sessions with the Ares campers and possibly the Athenas too would fix that right up. Completely academically competent? Not mortal? Hmm."

There was another silence.

And then. "Aha. Try this, young man." And from the wall Chiron took down the bow and quiver full of arrows.

Seth tested them in his hands, slinging the quiver over his shoulder and plucking the bowstring.

Meg was tossing snausages energetically in the air like a circus juggling act, and Seymour caught them, stretching out his stuffed neck eagerly.

There was a twang, and the last snausage flew out of Seymour's strong jaws and nailed itself to the wall inches from Chiron's left ear.

Ember groaned and slapped her forehead.

Seth, red-handed with a vibrating bow and a quiver minus one arrow, whispered, "Oops."


	7. Percy, Hermes, and dinner

"Hermes cabin, please, Nutmeg. The usual." Chiron said. Meg nodded and ran at a record speed to the omega formation of cabins. "And Peri, show them around."

"But Chiron," Peri protested. "My next shift with the strawberries starts in five minutes…"

"All right then, my dear satyr, then take them along to someone who will."

Peri nodded and beckoned Seth and Ember to go.

"Err. Peri?" Ember asked tentatively.

"Yep?"

"Nutmeg?"

The satyr turned and an impish smile broke out on his face.

"Yeah, that's her name. But a small warning-" The smile widened.

"Don't call her that unless you want your nose to be a petunia for a month."

And then he was gone, leaving the pair standing outside the third cabin from the left, with walls of weathered gray rock. There was a 3 on the mantel, patterned with seashells, and the door was engraved with a gleaming trident.

Seth knocked quietly on the door.

"Who is it?" came a boy's voice. There was a pattering of feet and the door burst open. A boy with sea-green eyes, wild black hair and a ballpoint pen crashed through.

He didn't recognize the faces and immediately adopted a defensive stance. He held out the capped pen and said warningly, "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

Ember personally couldn't see any damage he could inflict with the innocent-looking writing utensil, but she had a nasty feeling this was no ordinary pen and had enough bad surprises for the day. She held up her hands in the universal surrender sign and said, "Hi, camper. I'm Ember and he's Seth. We're new and Chiron wanted someone to show us around. Would you mind?"

"Oh. Right." The boy stuffed the pen back into his pocket and grinned. "New, huh? Met Mr. D yet?"

"Nope. He's really that bad?"

"Worse. Follow me." Said the boy, walking ahead. Half turning around, he added as an afterthought, "I'm Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon."

The camp was interesting. There was a pegasi stable, a wicked archery range and a canoeing lake, the campfire and the mess hall, the forge and the forest. "You'll have classes every day," Percy explained, "Ranging from ancient Greek to swordfighting to the climbing wall. In your free time you can do whatever you want as long as you stay in the camp boundaries, and every night after dinner we gather at the campfire. Sometimes we have war games and chariot races, so it would be smart if you prepared for those."

In the camp store, Seth and Ember bought a couple changes of clothes and toiletries, which they had all left behind in the orphanage after the Hellhound Incident, and a sturdy backpack each.

It was getting dark. Percy led the brother and sister to the Hermes cabin, which was a beat-up affair decorated with a large caduceus, and left us in the hands of the head counselor, Travis-and-his-twin-Connor Stoll.

Just before he left, Percy stuck his head round the door. "Just remember to give a burnt offering to the gods at dinner!" He told them, and left Ember puzzling over that one.

The Hermes cabin was packed to the brim with kids. They had expanded it without it showing from the outside – Seth wasn't even going to try to figure out how – and added extra bunks. His and Ember's were side by side and identical – plain sheets and a pillow and an attached bedside table with a drawer. They put their meager possessions into it, and then the conch began to sound.

"Dinner!" Travis and Connor lead the stampede to the dining pavilion. Delicious smells rose from the platters in the hands of the nymphs, and Seth suddenly realized that he hadn't eaten since Demeter's travel ration Wheatabix.

He and Ember loaded their plates and followed the lead of their fellow campers, scraping a portions of their meal into the ever-burning braziers. Seth sniffed. The smoke smelled of grapes and pomegranates. He and Ember sat at the Hermes table and hungrily devoured barbecue, fresh fruit, bread and cheese.

Ember was eying her empty glass. Experimenting, she said, "Strawberry smoothie." Thick, foaming pink liquid filled her glass to the brim. Then, "Coke." The pink stuff swirled around, and turned this most revolting shade of milky brown. She took a brave sip and recoiled. "Nasty! Tastes like a sort of mixture between coke an strawberries and milk… that's disgusting." She poured it into a brazier.

After much talking and shouting and laughing and strawberries being mashed into people's faces, the meal ended. After introducing Seth and Ember briefly to polite applause, Chiron, the activities master, stood up and announced, "Tonight we will have a game of capture the flag! Athena currently holds the laurels, and in this game will be against Hermes! Play safe, you all!"


	8. Capture the flag

Ember groaned as for the tenth time, the stupid helmet with its stupid blue feather plume slipped sideways across her head and fell off. The thing was far too big for her, as was the heavy armor.

Seth, too, was fidgeting. He didn't like being weighed down with useless plates of metal any more than she did.

"We," Ember said, "Are going to be slaughtered. Absolutely slaughtered."

"Yup." Seth agreed glumly. "After all, we're up against the Athena cabin!"

"Well, we have got the Ares campers, I suppose," Said Ember doubtfully.

"Look at her!" Seth pointed at a blond girl with gray eyes, giving orders to all the other Athena children. "She doesn't look like one to cross."

"Yeah, I'll say." Travis Stoll nodded from behind them. "That's Annabeth, Percy's girlfriend and head counselor of the Athena cabin. Take my advice and never try to prank her. There was just this one harmless little incident with a spider and she went absolutely mad."

"So what's our plan?" Ember asked. "Where do I stand?"

"Right here, newbies." Connor pointed. "You two are guarding home base."

"Great." Ember said determinedly. "C'mon, Seth." And Seth allowed himself to be dragged across the forest to a small hill where the flag stood, which was a big, silk banner, decorated with the caduceus, symbol of Hermes.

The game started and the Stoll brothers leapt into the trees, leaving Seth, Ember, and a couple of Ares sentries standing guard.

Ember fingered her heavy celestial bronze sword nervously. She kept imagining something monstrous bursting through the dense foliage. She didn't like the odds of her managing to ward something or someone off with a lumpy chunk of bronze.

Seth curled and uncurled his fingers around his spear. At least only the tip was bronze – the shaft was lighter wood. But it still felt uncomfortable in his hand.

Ember heard footfalls. They were far away at first, but as they got louder and nearer, she could discern not one but two sets of feet pounding through the woods.

Seth sensed a trap. There was no way that the opposition would create so much noise unless on purpose. It must be a diversion –

He motioned to Ember, and they climbed up the hill and guarded back to back with the flag in between, while the Ares defenders moved forwards, weapons at the ready, to investigate.

A huge dark shape the size of a large tank crashed into the clearing, red eyes rolling, big slimy tongue lolling, four furry black paws slamming into the grass.

"AAAAGGHH! It's a hellhound!" Ember screamed, panicking. She burst into flames, and Seth lunged forward and rammed her out of the way of the extremely combustible flag.

Seth gripped his spear, ready to attack, but he saw immediately that this hellhound was different to the one he had an unpleasant encounter with in Ms. Varner's science classroom. It seemed to be quite friendly, licking the campers with a very slobbery pink tongue and panting excitedly. It also seemed to have some kind of collar, with a little bronze doggie bone hanging from it, and the kids it was coating with a thick layer of saliva were laughing exasperatedly.

"Gods, it's Mrs. O'Leary!" One of them choked. "You scared us for a second there, girl."

Then Seth whipped around to face the flag. Ember, still smoking a little, was staring at the trees with a totally incredulous expression on her face and making a most peculiar noise at the back of her throat.

He peered into the leafy canopy just as two figures sprang out of their hiding places, landing a few meters away from him. One was a tall, gangly sixteen-year-old with wild black hair, sea-green eyes, and a victorious grin, and the other was a slightly shorter sixteen-year-old with long blond hair and dangerous gray eyes. Percy and his girlfriend, the you'd-better-not-mess-with-me Annabeth.

Crap, Seth and Ember thought.


	9. Lord and Lady of the dead

"Nothing."

Seth hugged his knees to his chest, watching the Athena kids dance victoriously with the flag. Percy and Annabeth were laughing together, faces illuminated by the campfire.

Seth was grumpy, and not just because of the lost game. Because of the clock. He had been thirteen for an hour now and had nothing to show for it- no glowing symbol of the gods floating above his head that Meg had told him to watch out for, no nothing. He had wondered if he really belonged right from the start, but this was big proof that he and Ember were different. Weird. Strange.

Ember was reasonably cheerful, toasting marshmallows over the flames. Hers never burned. The fire parted respectfully, melting the marshmallow a little but not overly charring it. It was easy for her, Seth thought, she still had hope. She still had another year. It sucked to be the oldest. You had to be responsible and good and in a race against time, you always lost.

Ember woke to the morning sunlight streaming through the window of the window of cabin eleven. She jumped out of bed and got ready for her first day in camp half-blood.

Afterwards, a few aspects of it stuck in her mind. Seth in a new orange camp half-blood shirt, the Apollo guys hitting each bulls-eye with nine or ten arrows in five seconds from a hundred yards, the Ares kids hacking arms and legs off the practice dummies, the climbing wall with lava oozing down the sides like icing on a cake, staring at a textbook of Ancient Greek, eyes watering, and not understanding a word, kayaking (which she failed and Seth nailed), and, finally, sweating and rather exhilaratingly dizzily collapsing at the Hermes table in the dining pavilion for lunch.

And then after lunch was when the siblings' rollercoaster ride of miseries really took off.

First of all, they had to go and see Mr. D. "No probs." Meg told them worriedly as she and "True, the less he sees of us campers the happier he is, and this must be important if he's actually asking to see you two, but it's all right! You'll, uh, probably be okay."

When Peri heard the news, his eyes widened in alarm. "Oh, brilliant!" He groaned. "No offense, but you two have got the worst luck. Just- just be really polite and watch what you say and- and- erm-"

They had reached the Big House. Meg and Peri looked at each other, and then at the two newbies. "Good luck." They said in unison.

"You'll need it!" Peri grinned apologetically and ran off.

"Gee, thanks," Ember mumbled as she and Seth walked in hesitantly and turned to face the god of madness.

He was sprawled on the couch, with dark curly hair and feet propped up on the coffee table.

"You two." He waved a can of Diet Coke in their general direction. "Sam and Eleanor-"

"Um, Mr. D?" Ember unwisely interrupted. "It's S-"

"I don't care one iota what you're saying." Mr. D grouched. "All that matters is what I say, get it, Eleanor?" Seth stood on her foot and she bit her lip.

"If I had my way, little sewer rats, you would make a couple of nice grapevines decorating the second pillar to the left in the backyard. Seymour doesn't like you and neither do I. But unfortunately-" He glared at nothing in particular. "My uncle wants you two to see him in the Underworld. Then again, he does transformations pretty well too, I suppose…" He mused, pulling a card from his leopard-print pocket and pressing it into the wall. It expanded into a dark rectangular doorway, and Dionysus gestured at it impatiently. "Well, hurry up!"

Seth's mind was whirling with this puzzling and frightening turn of events. Judging by Ember's expression, she felt the same apprehension as they both stared at the shadowy doorway. "Hey, wait a second. Hades wants to see us? Why?" Ember's voice had a panicky edge.

"Hmm, now let me see, little miss interruption," The god tapped his chin, miming exaggerated thought. "I have this feeling that it might just have to do with the fact that you and your brother Sam have not one drop of godly blood in your veins? Now go and be quick about it, because that portal is going to close and I am not making another one for the benefit of little sewer rats."

And so with sinking hearts and a horrible sense of fear, Seth and Ember stepped across the threshold to death.

It was a terrifying thing, dark and cold with strange whispery voices and the feeling of ghostly fingers on the backs of their necks like filmy grey cobwebs, so Seth and Ember ran. They ran and ran through the never-ending portal, blindly, and finally the icy ground gave away and they collapsed in a heap on the floor, gasping and choking as if they had been holding their breaths during the whole thing. Which they probably had been.

When they felt a bit better, the siblings stood, carefully brushed off their clothes, and shakily surveyed their surroundings.

Seth could tell immediately that it was a throne room, all black obsidian and gold. And the pride of the place was a huge throne made from fused human bones sitting right in the middle, with a smaller throne beside it, shaped like a delicate black flower.

With a voice filled with dread, Seth proclaimed slowly, "Hades and Persephone, lord and lady of the dead."


	10. The quest

Okay, lets get these few simple facts clear, in chronological order:

Room is empty

Ember blinks (which lasts like half a second)

OH MY GOD THERE'S THIS SCARY GOD DUDE SITTING IN THE THRONE!

And that was Ember's first impression of the god of the dead.

He was wearing a long, black robe, which shimmered like oil on water. His crown matched the throne, made of grisly bleached-white bones. He glared at Seth and Ember with crazy dark eyes.

"You two little brats arrived at that ridiculous demigod camp yesterday, correct?" He asked.

Geez, Seth thought, what did we do wrong? How come every damn god around here hates us before they even set eyes on us?

"Yes." Ember squeaked.

"From where were you picked up, exactly?"

"From our science class."

"That was where you met my hellhound?"

"Y– wait a second. Your hellhound?" Ember started to shake.

"Yes, insolent little… my hellhound."

"B-but if you wanted to kill us, why didn't you just let your nephew turn us into grapevines to decorate his backyard?"

Hades ground his teeth. "That hellhound had nothing to do with you! It was after a prisoner who would be safely locked up by now if you had not interfered and slashed it to bits, boy!" He ignored Ember's question and addressed Seth.

Faced with the glowering god, Seth's voice was perfectly calm and cold as ice. "That monster was trying to kill me."

Hades snorted contemptuously. "Do you recall, boy, that YOU WERE STANDING IN FRONT OF SOMEONE when my faithful hellhound lunged at you?!" He shouted.

"Oh my freaking gods." Ember breathed, horrified. She and Seth turned towards each other and said in unison, "Ms. Varner!"

"Correct, brats. Your 'Ms. Varner' is my escaped convict and I want him back!"

Ember felt like screaming. The pieces of this puzzle were coming together. She and Seth had such rotten luck- being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people. The satyr Peri must have associated the demigod scent of the death god's prisoner with Seth's hellhound-destroying air and water powers. Now they were stuck here with an angry god bellowing for his captive. Worst of all, gone was all hope that the siblings were demigods. Outcasts once and forever. She glared at Hades.

"We accept." Seth's voice rung through the cavern, flat and devoid of all life. "That's what you want, right? For us to go on a quest to bring back your escaped convict. Well, we accept."

Hades looked evilly satisfied. "Well, this one is good at reading people, is he not?" He mused. "Not a demigod, but more powerful than all the rest."

"You're not getting us, you horrible old coffin head." Ember hissed under her breath.

Seth stepped on her foot. "Stop pushing our luck right off a cliff, Ember!" He said through gritted teeth. "I'm trying to keep us alive here!"

"Take it and go, boy." Something round and white dropped into Seth's hand. A whirling black portal appeared at their feet.

"Wait just a second!" Ember shrieked. "Who is this person we're supposed to go after? What did he do? Give us something to start with!"

"He was imprisoned for thievery and is now after a very valuable piece of machinery called the animetron. We do not want him to get hold of it so you two have to get hold of him. Now, no more questions!" Hades waved a hand and a pair of grinning skeletons wearing army fatigues came up from behind and pushed the pair into the portal.


End file.
